


(Running) Out of Time

by estike



Category: Sainte♡d’Amour - Takarazuka Revue
Genre: F/F, canonical time slip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 23:29:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16293971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estike/pseuds/estike
Summary: Sometimes you collide with the holiest, the unparalleled, and cannot help but fall in love with their greatness - only to realize that you two are running out of time.(You never had time, to begin with.)Based on the Takarazuka musical - in which Joanne d'Arc slips forward in time, straight into the arms of her biggest fan living in twenty-first century Orléans, Pamela Chevalier.





	(Running) Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> I really liked the musical's _Smileducks Coffee_ but sadly I could not come up with names that cute or creative, so please bear with me. (Nonetheless, I still wanted to continue with the trend.)
> 
> Also, once again, I have never heard of the word "research" in my life because I am lazy, but also, do you really need to historically research a dumb musical about time slipping into the twenty-first century? Yeah, I didn't think so. 
> 
> Naturally, there are some spoilers to the show, although I suppose history has spoiled it for us all. I don't know how much sense this makes if you haven't seen the musical, though.
> 
> I had to specify it was a _canonical_ time slip in the tags lest people think I came up with it.

There is something her mom told her when she was about twelve or thirteen, and Pamela is quite sure that she did not even mean it. She recalls hearing it from other sources too. Stray words from friends, grown-ups, and the likes. That if you visualise what you want night by night, by some mundane magic, it will get to you if you are assiduous enough. And that is how, since she was fourteen, Pamela has been going to bed with Jeanne d’Arc.

At fourteen, of course, people should be mature enough to at least half understand how futile their yearnings are. Pamela could have visualised any celebrated pop star each and every night, and her wishes could still be somehow granted. If not even by the mundane magic of one’s stubborn, creative mind, then by just a string of well-crafted coincidences.

And so, any sane fourteen-year-old would understand that for this reason, using their chances on wishing for things that could happen completely naturally, out of the blue, is completely wasteful. At least Pamela did.

How could anyone learn about the story of Jeanne d’Arc and remain unmoved, uninspired by her unparalleled courage? Her purity? Her passion. Her will. Point to a girl who was not in awe after hearing about her, wishing for the same divine stubbornness to carry her through. Each night it is the same, and Pamela asks for a chance. A chance to let Jeanne d’Arc know, of the things perhaps she knows already: that her death was not futile, that she is fondly remembered as a peerless heroine, that girls (and boys!) all over the world look up to her as an idol.

Well, at least Pamela does.  

It is easy to get into a habit, especially if it is something so easy to perform, something that comes so naturally. Each and every night, still, even if eight years have passed ever since she first fell for this holy figure: brighter than gold, she keeps asking for the same chance. Just let her meet Jeanne d’Arc once. Just let her tell her how much she means. Just let her show the pages in all her history books. Just let her show around in her hometown, Orléans, this place she left her mark on permanently.

No… Not even that. Just let Pamela tell her once, once, how much she means to _her_. And that would be enough. And that would be plenty.

All these years, the closest she ever got to Joanne is her university professor, Joan, as obsessed with engineering the world’s first working time machine as Pamela is with Jeanne d’Arc. If she ever ended up finishing the project, and it ever ended up working, she would only need five minutes…

You see, Pamela is madly in love with her boyfriend, but nothing ever compares to lionhearted heroines, buried in the past, yet living on forever. He must know this, too. He must understand this.

Perhaps this is why he is not at all reluctant when one day finally, Pamela walks into their apartment with a girl on her arm in dirty rags smelling of smoke, and a mop of messy, golden hair.

 

***

 

Sometimes you spend so much time being obsessed with the idea of someone that you are surprised to find out that reality is even sweeter than your fantasies. Nothing could have gotten her ready for this.

Fairly few things can get you ready to see your childhood heroine, from six hundred years ago, sprawling out on your sofa, wearing _your_ bright red college tracksuit. Possibly nothing.

Even in an old tracksuit, with her uncombed hair and dirty fingernails, there is something more about her. She is not out of this world: she is above it. She is out of her time. She is purer, she is better, she is more. So, this is not the reason why Pamela starts to see her in a different light. (For being so much more, even while being so mundane.)

She hugs a fluffy pink pillow close to herself, dangling her legs about on the sofa. “I have never worn garments better than these ones, woman.”

Pamela interrupts her and persistently reminds her of her name, once again. The last thing she needs is for Jeanne to go about the town and call strangers funny names, thinking that it is alright. Instead of listening, she kicks her leg up high in the air.

“And the freedom of movement is amazing!” she adds, only being able to hear her own voice.

You see, when Pamela reads books about heroines that lived six hundred years ago, no matter how detailed the biography, no matter how much research the historian put into their arguments, there is always something amiss. Characters remain two-dimensional, even within the hands of the most skilled researcher, because simply, even if facts translate to paper, personality is not something one can determine from a distance of hundreds and hundreds of years. Sources lie, people are full of disdain, and above all, you have to see it for yourself. 

Jeanne d’Arc is a heroine on paper, a martyr, a saint. Which she is!

But she is also a nineteen-year-old girl, smitten with the delicate rose petals, and the touch of jersey against her skin. Books may talk about it, it may be the only topic they ever discuss when it comes to Jeanne d'Arc, but Pamela has never realized until now: she is running out of time. She never felt the sense of urgency. There _is_ no sense of urgency when the object of your yearning has been dead for six hundred years. Because, whatever. She's not real anyway. She was, somewhere far away, beyond imagination, it could have been all invented for all we know. 

Now, Pamela does not know much about time slips either, and the most she can imagine all comes from silly books and movies she consumed over the years. One thing is for sure (or, well, at least according to very many historians): Jeanne d’Arc died at the stake in 1431.

She may be here now, but soon enough, perhaps with the next solar flare, she will need to return where she belongs.

But they have some time before that…

 

***

 

She makes her boyfriend move out of their bedroom and sleep on the couch.

“You do not expect _The_ Jeanne d’Arc to sleep on our sofa, I hope?” she argues, shoving a thin blanket in Hervé’s hands. He will do with that just fine. “You sleep on the sofa, and I will be next to her.”

“What if she doesn’t want you to be next to her?”

Pamela hits him in the face with the first pillow she finds. “Then we will sleep on the sofa together. Now, get out and make your bed.”

Jeanne might be running out of time – _they_ might be running out of time – but it is all the more reasons to show her at least a grain of happiness. She is not a historian, she is an engineer, she would not understand fully how life in the fifteenth century had been. But does she really need to understand? Jeanne was torn from her real life and flung in a six hundred years’ distance. What is so wrong wanting her to see everything, the good, and the better before she goes back? (What is so wrong in not wanting her ever to go back to face whatever she has to face – even if Pamela knows that there is no other way for Jeanne’s story to end?)

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

She nudges her boyfriend to finally go.

No matter how much Hervé would like to move to the sofa, it is already occupied by someone else, clutching a video game controller in her hand, and fighting various monsters. A little timer on the right corner of the television screen reminds her that they are running out of time…

Pamela claps, to get her boyfriend’s attention. “That’s it! We are going to _Flush_ to do some shopping!”

Hervé rolls his eyes. “It’s after eight at night, why on earth would you want to go there right now.”

She lowers her voice, even though Jeanne is too pre-occupied with her video game to be disturbed by some yelling.

“We are going to get some bubble bars. You know, if I were from the fifteenth century, and in love with a worn tracksuit, I would lose my mind over pink bathwater that also smelled like candyfloss.” 

Which reminds her, they need to buy some candyfloss, too. If she were from the fifteenth century, she would lose her mind over candyfloss, too. And smartphones, and music players, and chewing gum, and ... 

It takes some effort to lure Jeanne away from the tv screen and outside, but they manage to lead her towards the shop in the end. She already wrinkles her nose into a disgusted grimace before they would enter.

“What smells so disgusting around here?” Then, once they get inside, and Jeanne only gets louder. “Where have you taken me, woman?”

Pamela tries to explain the charm point of _Flush_. After a lengthy, enthusiastic lecture on bubble bars and the like, Jeanne only gives her a funny look.

“And who on earth would want their bath to foam with colour? I just want to clean myself. Everything smells disgusting and too sweet here.”

 

***

 

Pamela and Hervé end up leaving with a handful of products anyway because no matter how stubborn her lady is, she is going to make her enjoy the small twenty-first century miracles! Even if she dies in the process.

What Pamela does not expect is that her lady is already ecstatic just by realizing that she can adjust the temperature of the water with a single movement of her hand. Right… Sometimes it doesn’t have to be overcomplicated. She still adds the bubble bar to the (scorching hot) water, knowing that sooner or later it would charm Jeanne. 

Pamela gives one of her favourite bathrobes to the girl, powder coloured, silky. In case she would need it later. She shows her around in the bathroom, a hair comb here, toothbrush, toothpaste, nail file, clippers. Hand cream, face cream, foot cream, body lotion (“so many of them! Why can’t you use the same thing!”), toner, cotton puffs. 

When she is finished with the basics, Pamela nods. “Well, I will leave you alone, so you can get comfortable and right into the ba…”

She cannot even finish before Jeanne gets rid of her jumper and t-shirt at the same time, then kicks the trousers off of herself. She was not wearing socks, to begin with, so her bare feet disappear into the fluffy purple rug under her as she steps right onto it. Suddenly flustered as she is, for the both of them, Pamela tries to break her own neck, so nobody could accuse her of looking. (She kind of still peeks, by aggressively pretending that she isn’t.)

“What,” Jeanne asks in a deadpan voice as she gets rid of the knickers Pamela chose for her earlier – and she tried to choose the most comfortable ones at that. “What has gotten into you.”

“Nothing!”

She only looks back at her once Jeanne is safely, and completely submerged under the bubbles. There is nothing to lose anymore, so she stays with her, sitting on the mat, and resting her elbow on the bath tub’s side. Watching Jeanne play with the body sponge, squeezing the pink thing between her hands, she forgets about everything else for a while. She forgets about the history she learned, about the inevitability of this moment coming to an end, about Hervé outside the bathroom door somewhere, waiting for her to be madly in love with him again.

(And again, she must know that when it comes to her idol, her heroine, The Joanne d’Arc, nobody could possibly win the match. He cannot even come close to it.)

Her golden hair is stuck to her back where the skin is wet, but at the top of her head, it is still dry and messy. She takes some shampoo and, after warning the girl, helps her with washing her hair. Shampoo, conditioner, treatment. 

“What is that! I am not sure I want that smell anywhere near my hair, woman!” Jeanne protests, but falls silent once Pamela starts massaging her scalp with nimble fingers.

For a moment they are all silent, the only sound around them is the slight buzzing of the bathroom lights above their heads. 

“You know,” she breathes the words, barely saying them. “It would be good if you could stay here forever. With us.”

That snaps Jeanne out of it. “And what good would it do! While I am here, enjoying a bath, my people are struggling against the English! Did I not abandon them by ending up at this place? And doing nothing.”

“But don’t you deserve some fun too? If you could just…?”

As selfish as it sounds, Pamela truly wonders. Why is it that some people have to die horrible deaths in order to make others move forward? What can change if one innocent girl is not forced to become a martyr, after all? Her eyes are dark and warm, and she loves fresh roses. Her heart is pure and full of courage. Is it really necessary to make such a sacrifice? 

But before the argument could start, Jeanne already closes it the case. “I am Jeanne d’Arc. I cannot be anyone else but myself.”

 

***

 

Hervé moves to the couch indefinitely. At first, it is strange and uncomfortable, especially that Jeanne keeps trying to kick her off the bed as she is moving around at night. A few other instances she wakes up screaming. (“The fire of the truth spreading in my chest won’t lose to the false flames! My body will burn to nothing with this world!”)

In the first few days, she tries to give Jeanne a makeover, even though deep down she knows that the girl does not need it. More than that, it is nothing more than her own selfishness that tries to make her look … popular? acceptable? enough for the twenty-first century.

Parading around The Jeanne d’Arc in cheap tracksuits feels wrong all the same: so does letting her be out and about with hair smoked and scorched on fire. Even so, after the deed is done, and there is something amiss, even though there is one thing Jeanne finally finds pleasant.

“I could have thought of this earlier,” she murmurs to herself as she runs her fingers through her shortcut. “It is a lot breezier. Safer, too.”

The skirts, she doesn’t like them much. There would be no day going by without Jeanne praising those stupid jerseys instead, as they were the greatest invention of humankind. She still wears them when she is tending to the roses at the front of Pamela’s flat. A hint of colour in the city.

“At least some things bear the very same beauty across the centuries,” Jeanne always whispers to herself as she crouches down, taking up all the space on the sidewalk with her tools, without a thought to any passer-by.

And no matter how much Pamela tries to show her the beauty of their age, it seems like she is still stuck in between the lines of history somewhere. Not really in 1431 and yet, not completely living here, either. If asked, she would agree, of course, the twenty-first century has many assets. The showers are amazing, so are the tracksuits. Trainers are like stepping on clouds, soft, round cushions. Makes it a lot easier to run. 

But when Pamela tries to take her to _Smileducks_ , their frappés are too sweet and too cold. She wants to drink something hot. When she tries to take her to the movies, while she enjoys the action, the sound is too loud, it annoys her. (Popcorn? That, she seems to like very much on the other hand. Finally, something that isn’t just sugar.) Out of all of it, Jeanne probably enjoys picnics in the park the most, lost somewhere in time again. With only nature around them, and the sun softly peeking out from behind white clouds, they could be wherever, whenever.

They don't need to be anywhere at all. Time does not need to be around them. 

Jeanne is tying a handful of dandelions into a headdress: recalling childhood memories. Some things do not change, Pamela thinks. People can be heroines, martyrs, saints, but in the end, they are all human. It is the most beautiful thing about Jeanne, her odd manners, the single curl on the left side of her hair, her full-teethed smile. Her purity.

The sun flares grow in number, and once, for now, it is sure, Jeanne will have to go back. Nothing ever can stay the same way.

Especially not when you stole someone precious from her own timeline.

Jeanne places the headdress on top of her hair. “Pamela. Here.”

She does not remember when she started calling her by her name. At first, her heart must have skipped a beat and yet: she cannot recall.

When she smiles, she is the sun herself, and Pamela can clearly see the fire of justice, whatever fire that is, which can overcome the flames of deceit. And yet, and still.

Something bites into her own chest. “I don’t want you to go back! I want you to stay here forever.”

There is a change in Jeanne’s black eyes, but she cannot put her fingers on it.

“I am Jeanne d’Arc. If I stayed here, I would lose my purpose.”

 

***

 

And as the pages of the history book disappear, Pamela knows that it is not only a purpose she is losing. Perhaps she can delude herself with the Jeanne d’Arc contest, perhaps she can lie to herself and call going to London a “purpose,” but in the end, it will not matter. Perhaps Jeanne helped to reunite a broken family – but did they really need _The_ Jeanne d’Arc for that? Can she possibly argue that this is the reason she needed to keep her here? And that she needs to keep clinging to her, for as long as she can?

As long as the lines keep being erased, it will all be Pamela’s selfishness that possibly rips the continuity of past and present apart.

You see, when you read about a martyr who heard the voice of Saints when she was merely thirteen, who fought and died for what she believed in at nineteen, you get obsessed. When you meet this person in the flesh, look into her black eyes, watch her have hearty conversations with the AI in your house, beat you in video games day and night, tend to roses at the entrance of your flat, you fall in love.

And only once you fall in love you do realize how little nineteen years are, how she is running out of time, how _you_ are running out of time. Then, you want to give everything to her, everything in the world that you can just imagine, and perhaps she hates it now, but in the end, she _lived_ it. And that’s all that matters.

You want to give everything to her. Everything she could not have, everything she did not have, everything you can muster. 

It is not even what Pamela had in mind when she first started begging to meet her, but only when facing your idols you realize that there are some words you cannot always properly say. There are some things that are better left unsaid. Expressed in silence, with subtle acts, with stolen looks.

Jeanne does not try to kick her off the bed anymore, she barely moves at night. She scarcely wakes while screaming, and when she does so, Pamela is there to soothe her. (Even though, the more she listens to the cries, the more she understands: the more it scares her, too.) At first, she would avoid her hands, but now Jeanne does not resist when her palm softly caresses her forehead, or when an arm snakes around her in a protective embrace.

“Shh. I am here, you are safe. You are far-far away from that place,” Pamela murmurs into her hair.

Jeanne slowly turns. Her face is worn, but calm by now. 

“But I should not be. I am Jeanne d’Arc. If anyone, I need to be there, and there only.”

Even if it is painful? Pamela wants to know.

“Even more so, if it is painful. Saint Catherine did not talk to me only for me to shy away from some pain. She did not choose me only for me to abandon my beloved France and live somewhere far away, turning my back to the suffering of my beloved people.”

The intent burning in her eyes is the most beautiful: and truly, if it was gone, she would not be the same. Yet, at the same time, something else is burning Pamela’s eyes. Tears.

She doesn't know when she started crying. 

Her opponent might be a saint, a martyr, a heroine, but she is still nothing more but a selfish, ordinary person. Only one of them was made to rise above her earthly persona and make great sacrifices. The other, she was simply made simply to adore her for it. Right or wrong, that doesn't matter now.

“But I don’t want you to die! I don’t want it to happen… and if it has to happen… at least not _yet_ … Please give me time.”

Jeanne reciprocates the touches, something she has not done before. At first, on Pamela’s brow, then caressing the skin on the side of her cheek. Finally, her hand ends up on the girl’s waist, fully carrying out their embrace. 

“But Pamela, you have so much time. Look, your nose is entirely red from crying.”

 

***

That's it! That's the problem. But how could she say that - how could she say that in a way that she would understand? She has so much time, and she wishes that it was a time they could share. Pamela wishes that all the time she has could belong to her too, that her suffering would be eased, that she could know carefree fun, she could know love (the sort of love that is not great like her love for France, the sort of love that is mundane, shared between ordinary people, who never saw a vision of Saints in their life), the good-hearted spirit of people, hope, joy. How could she relay all this! 

She kisses her then, lips ghosting against lips, scared (knowing!) that she would be turned away in the next moment. And yet, if she does not do it now, she will not have the chance to do it ever again. There is no such thing as perfect timing, but if there was, this would be it. The last time she could possibly do it. Who knows what will become of tomorrow. 

Jeanne does not say anything, nor does she move. She simply freezes at first, her eyes wide open in her surprise.

“Sorry…” Pamela mumbles, her voice still groggy from crying.

She is unsure if she is sorry for crying, sorry for saying stupid things, or sorry for kissing her again.

The next time she kisses her, it is a lot bolder, her hands clutching the other’s body closer to herself, clinging to the back of her nightgown with strong fingers, the blood runs out of her knuckled fist. Finally, Jeanne responds: she is not entirely unwelcome, but the girl is surprised all the same, and it filters through her kisses, confused, new, experimental.

There are some words that can’t be spoken with dignity; that cannot translate to the tongue they both speak, and yet, none of them understands. Instead, she peppers kisses all over her jaw, then moves down to her neck, with wet, teary kisses on the hot skin, scorching where the fire licked her. Where the fire will lick her once again.

“I have time,” she finally explains, between kisses, and sobbing out all the same. “But _you_ are running out of time!”

Jeanne laughs. It stops her in movement, in between kisses, and she even forgets to cry for a moment as the girl pulls her up again. They are facing each other now. Jeanne laughs, still, but there is something else in her eyes.

“I have already run out of time, silly woman,” she sniffles, the words coming through pressed teeth. But she smiles. She still smiles. Woman sounds like a pet name from her mouth for the first, and last time. “Everything else I did here was surplusage.”

This time, Jeanne draws her in by the front of her pyjamas, into a next kiss, faces wet, noses red.

 _The_ Jeanne d’Arc.


End file.
